Adventures in baking, being frugal, becoming organized and blogging through life…

April Resolutions

It’s a tough call, but I think March was my most favorite month of 2013 thus far. I celebrated a birthday, was showered with love, received SO MUCH MAIL (which I love), went to a wedding, almost caught my apartment on fire, realized cropped tops were back in style and enjoyed a nice calm and restful Easter with friends. I mean, there were not great parts too… but I’m fairly certain the good outweighed the bad!

And I conquered some serious goals.

Boom.

Let’s review shall we?

I want to learn to knit. Or at least sign up for a class. Here’s what I realized… the knitting class I was going to attend was in the middle of the day. What? Anywho, we can start the goals by saying that I failed here. Hard core. Sigh. Might as well move it to April, because nothing says laying by the pool better than a pile of yarn and some knitting 😉

I’m putting together a budget. So we’ve already discussed that I used to work at a bank and back in those days I discovered the beauty that was mint.com. It’s an aggregation tool that basically pulls all of your financial information into one place… where it then categorizes everything you spend so that you can EASILY watch where your money is going. So I logged in this month, renewed all of my accounts, categorized all of my purchases and worked through a budget. I mean, I wouldn’t say it was easy, it took some serious time to set up the categories (because I have a mortgage payment and a rent payment… so that confused mint a bit), went through EVERY transaction and then set amounts. I’m having a hard time letting it log me into one of my accounts… but once we get that in there – the budget will be complete. Oh – and even better – Mint emails you when you’re being bad. “Hey Betsy, you spent more on Coffee this month than you said you were going to. STOP DOING THAT.” I mean, come on, talk about accountability. That’s just plain awesome. So if you’re in the market for some fairly basic budgeting software give it a try. I think you’ll like it. Oh, plus there’s pretty graphics. And as a visual person, it’s hard to say no to some pretty charts.

Put money in savings at the end of the month. You guys. I DID THIS. Not only did I put money in savings, but I actually opened up a savings account to put the money into. This can also be attributed to the fact that I got my taxes filed and parts of my refund went into savings (the other parts went into other fun practical things like wedding gifts and a replacement microwave for the apartment). So I would like to announce to you that in March of 2013 – I have money in savings and no bad debt! Cha-ching! High five! Hip hip hooray! I mean, I still have my car payment and my mortgage. But we’re not calling that bad debt. We’re calling that happy debt. It’s the kind of debt that you don’t wonder how you got. You had to commit to it. With papers. 🙂

Re-become a morning person. This is a weird one to measure. I knew that going into it, but I feel like I’ve finally started re-adjusting. Going to bed earlier, getting up earlier. And I’m loving it. Partially I think it’s easier to do because as you get up earlier the sun is up earlier to greet you. Partially it’s because I asked friends to go to a 5:30am boot camp class. Yuck. And yay. I’m torn!

Those were LONG responses, because I didn’t really blog about those to lead you anywhere. Whoops. Sorry about that.

So now… for April goals.

Organize my drawers. I know a I talked a little bit about this here, but seriously, I’m going to clean out and re-organize my drawers. I thought I’d cleaned out PLENTY when I moved here. But my stuff doesn’t really fit in my two dressers. And that’s just sad. If I’m not wearing it, then it needs to go. Especially since I’m about to move my costume closet from home here. And that stuff takes up some serious space. Well, that and I know I’m going to have to move again in May… and why not just move less?! You’ll for sure get a blog post about that. You know, something to look forward to.

Read Jesus Calling. Every day. All month. There’s been a few bad days this last month and I’m constantly amazed at the comfort I feel when I’m down and I spend time in the Word. Which should always be where I turn first, but sometimes, it’s an after thought (if we’re being honest). To be fair, Jesus Calling isn’t necessarily ‘the Word’ – but it’s a little bit of a daily inspiration that then normally leads me into the Bible to look up the verses it’s referencing. If you’re in need of a daily pick-me-up, I’d find yourself a copy. It’s uplifting, it’s inspiring and it’s a bit convicting. Which is just what my heart needs!

Buy an oil thermometer. Surely they can’t be that expensive? And I have a wee little bit left on a Bed Bath and Beyond gift card I got as a moving gift. And that will lead to…

Fry something. At first the failure was terrifying. But then I just got mad. And now I feel challenged. I’m going to fry something. Maybe not cheese frenchees… but something. You know, since the microwave is already burned. Might as well attempt something again before it gets replaced… And this time, I WILL have people around. Because this time, I’m going to want witnesses.